


Three Hundred Drafts

by eloquated



Series: Stranger Than Fiction [3]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Introspection, but not super angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 07:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18383939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Molly,I’m not even sure if you’re using this email anymore, but it’s the only one I have for you....During his time in Kamar-Taj, Stephen writes to Molly.  But he never sends them.





	Three Hundred Drafts

**Author's Note:**

> This ship has officially taken over my brain! (Am I complaining? Not so much!)
> 
> It's also my first time writing Stephen introspection, so I hope I've done him justice!
> 
> This can be read as a sequel of sorts to 'Practice Exam', but it isn't necessary to have read it to understand this one!

**To : Margaret Hooper (mhooper@kingsalum.edu)** **  
****From : Stephen Strange (sstrange@gmail.com)  
** **Title :**

**Molly,**

**I’m not even sure if you’re using this email anymore, but it’s the only one I have for you...**

God, he hated the generic email address.  But that was what happened when your medical license was suspended-- you had to adapt.

Stephen stared at the screen and backspaced out of the document, leaving another draft to collect on the pile.  Currently there were just over three hundred (324, if he was counting. Or if he looked at the bold number best the Drafts folder).

Three hundred copies of the same thing, written in very slightly different wording; but all amounting to the same thing--  _ I miss you _ .

Sometimes he wrote on about how he’d dreamed of her, in the strange, too-vivid sleep that came with benzodiazepines and Desflurane.  With each surgery had come the sweet, longing dreams, his mind reaching out for someone that wouldn’t be there when he woke up.

Sitting at his small desk, Stephen clenched his fingers slowly into his palm, feeling the masochistic burn of unyielding scar tissue and mangled muscle.

What right did he have to talk to her now?

They’d said terrible--

_ No. _

Here, at least, in the privacy of his own mind, Stephen was trying to be honest.   _ He _ had said terrible things.

He’d been young and angry, grieving a decision he already suspected he would regret.  But he was Stephen Strange, he was brilliant-- he was going to change the world, and modern medicine.  He would save lives.

People would be grateful for his skills.

_ There were plenty of fish in the sea.  He didn’t need one mousy pathology student to hold him back. _

And there had been, when he bothered to make the time.  

Beautiful women, with kohl darkened eyes and their bodies trimmed and manicured until they barely resembled real people. Striking in their sleek clothes-- and angling themselves so he wouldn’t notice the traces of their plastic surgery scars when they weren’t.

He’d been with James and Ryan because he  _ could _ .  And their bodies were less interesting than the way they held him in awe.  Neither of them had stirred up a plebian crisis of sexuality-- Stephen was a doctor, a man of science.

Male or female, they were all made of the same cells, just in different configurations.  No, things hadn’t worked with either of them because, in the end, they bored him. Their awe was more interesting than their minds.

And when the hero worship had faded, so had they.

Then he’d met Christine.  And she’d reminded him of Molly; brown haired and generous with her smiles.  She’d wanted to help people, save people-- sometimes, he thought she was trying to save him.  

Stephen stared at the screen for another long moment, his fingers lingering over the keys.  He should delete all these drafts, what purpose were they serving? Every night, another inch added to the stick he was beating himself with.

As much as he tried to tell himself it wasn’t.  It was a bridge-- every draft bringing him a little closer to the letter he would send.  

Well, he’d become self aware enough to know that wasn’t going to happen.

No, he’d met Christine, and she’d been lovely.  

Slowly, Stephen fingered the sling ring across his fingers, and traced the squared edge with his thumb.  He’d written to Christine a handful of times since he’d arrived in Kamar-Taj, but she hadn’t responded.

It had galled him at first, his pride rising up to protect him from a hurt he didn’t understand.  

At this time of night, the corridors outside his room were quiet, and Stephen could almost hear the beat of his heart if he focused long enough. A liminal stillness that offered no distraction from his dark thoughts.  

There was just him, and the bright glow of the computer-- and then, closing the screen, there wasn’t even that.

Heaving a sigh, just for the clearing burn of a too-deep breath in his lungs, Stephen turned back towards his bed.  Most nights he studied, and there was a comforting routine in that. For so long, he’d excelled at everything he did.  It hadn’t come easily, despite what people thought.

No, he’d put in his time, his sweat, and his thousands of hours of study and practice to be the best.

And then he had been.  

The best.  Undisputedly.

Stephen Strange had set out with a goal.  The same goal that had prompted him to leave Molly holding the tattered remains of the future they’d planned.  

_ You understand, Molly.  If I’m going to be the best, I have to take this opportunity.  I have plans, and you don’t fit into them, anymore. I’m going to change the world, and didn’t you always suspect that I was out of your league? _

God, he’d been such an insufferable prick.

And he’d dated Christine, hoping to fill the Molly-shaped absence in his life.  Perhaps, he’d thought at the time, it wasn’t Molly that was special at all-- maybe he just had a yen for idealistic brunettes.

With a gallows smirk for his own stupidity, Stephen sank down on the side of his bed, the wood creaking faintly under his weight.  Here in Kamar-Taj, there was always a challenge; expanding his mind and pushing his body; and he’d risen to it all. 

The impossible had become… More than probable, but truth.  

But for all his new wisdom, he still couldn’t find the words to tell Molly that he was sorry.  It had been too many years, he knew that already. Too long, and too silent, and the intervening years had only amplified the rough edges of his personality.

What was the point?  Contacting Molly was a selfish thing; he did it because he missed her desperately, not because it would be good for her.

Because things had never felt concluded between them.  There was no closure, only the look of shock on her face, floating behind his eyelids, whenever he thought of her.

They had been the happiest years of his life.

Sometimes, laying in bed on the nights he couldn’t sleep, his gaze fixed on the dark ceiling, Stephen wondered if she would have gone with him.  If he’d asked. Would she have deferred her admission for a year?

Two years?

Would she have given up her work to be with him?

Even at his most selfish, Stephen hadn’t been willing to ask her for that.  And now, he wasn’t sure he’d want to know.

Morning came early in Kamar-Taj, and he needed sleep.

He could try writing her again in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hop into the comments and chat strangeolly with me, I'd love love love to meet other fans of the ship!


End file.
